bdub77:In case you missed it, the largest space onlinebattle between virgins living in their parents basementin history occurred last night

FTFY.

You say that, but what better way to generate the next big sci-fi plots (or at least the narrative that shepherds along the sci-fi theme you're pimping in this effort) than an organically-grown universe where alliances and battles are crowd-sourced?

You put a leading character on the big ship, or as the commander of the capital ship cavalry that took down the Big Mamma Jamma, throw in a wisecraking sidekick, a weapons expert and some backstory for the battle, and you've got 2015's summer blockbuster.

PsyLord:Over 4000 ships in the battle and they had to slow the gametime to 10% so their servers can handle the load? It must've felt forever for you to fire and hit your target.

Time dilation, honestly, is not noticed as much by the actual players. Sure, it's taking forever for your missiles to travel to target, but your shields are dropping more slowly too, your hull repairs are fighting an invisible foe... the adrenaline at that moment makes time meaningless.

maxximillian:This game reminds me of Tradewars with graphics (and bigger spread sheets). I'm sure it was an epic battle.

/No I don't want to get in to it..//yes I do

You can stay in 'safe' space (although that's a misnomer) and live quietly, mining and trading and building and so forth. If you tire of watching mining lasers make small rocks out of big rocks, you can strap into a fast, small-signature ship and brave low-security, or the no-man's land of 0.0 security space. All types of play for all types of players.

A few years back I read about a battle in one of these online games. One group spent countless hours and lots of real world money acquiring the largest, most expensive warship that could be gotten. It would make them virtually invincible. Notice I said virtually. Almost as soon as they got it, hundreds of other players started attacking them in small, cheap ships. The big ship was able to destroy those small ships with ease, but each time took a small amount of damage. Each time a small ship got destroyed, the player would log back in, grab another small ship and attack. It took them hours but they managed to take out the big ship. Does anybody know what game that was in?

Dr Dreidel:bdub77: In case you missed it, the largest space onlinebattle between virgins living in their parents basementin history occurred last night

FTFY.

You say that, but what better way to generate the next big sci-fi plots (or at least the narrative that shepherds along the sci-fi theme you're pimping in this effort) than an organically-grown universe where alliances and battles are crowd-sourced?

You put a leading character on the big ship, or as the commander of the capital ship cavalry that took down the Big Mamma Jamma, throw in a wisecraking sidekick, a weapons expert and some backstory for the battle, and you've got 2015's summer blockbuster.

// not an Eve player

I think the Battle of Asakai would make for an interesting movie. It fascinates me that it happened because of one person's mistake that snowballed into a giant battle.

stevetherobot:A few years back I read about a battle in one of these online games. One group spent countless hours and lots of real world money acquiring the largest, most expensive warship that could be gotten. It would make them virtually invincible. Notice I said virtually. Almost as soon as they got it, hundreds of other players started attacking them in small, cheap ships. The big ship was able to destroy those small ships with ease, but each time took a small amount of damage. Each time a small ship got destroyed, the player would log back in, grab another small ship and attack. It took them hours but they managed to take out the big ship. Does anybody know what game that was in?

Sounds like EVE hulkmageddons.

Hulks are big mining ships, they typically hang out in space where the game government actively polices, so computer controlled ships pop up and smash you if you attack someone. The ships are pretty tough, but not invincible. Large swarms of frigates (smallest ships in the game) would converge on them and burst them down before the police could effectively handle the situation.

It may have also happened with a Titan (biggest ships in the game to my knowledge of it at least, been a few years though) and a similar strategy, although those tend to not ever be alone because of how expensive they are.

Intrepid00:PsyLord: Over 4000 ships in the battle and they had to slow the gametime to 10% so their servers can handle the load? It must've felt forever for you to fire and hit your target.

EvE was written on stackless Python. It literally cannot process more than one event at a time. It IS single CPU bound.

So this was added based off old school RTS that had the same problem. It sucks it is slow, but now your guns fire, you blow up like you should or shouldn't, warp bubbles hold fleets, etc.

They have been slowly replacing the code but CCP sipped some Kool-Aid and over extended themselves.

Also, I too am winning EvE. It has been like 2 years since I logged in and I guess finally we are flying Megathrons in Goons :(

An interesting thing from a tech POV is that EVE is essentially a single giant database. To handle the load, they had to get military-grade SSDs, because their normal hard drives were breaking down too fast.

stevetherobot:A few years back I read about a battle in one of these online games. One group spent countless hours and lots of real world money acquiring the largest, most expensive warship that could be gotten. It would make them virtually invincible. Notice I said virtually. Almost as soon as they got it, hundreds of other players started attacking them in small, cheap ships. The big ship was able to destroy those small ships with ease, but each time took a small amount of damage. Each time a small ship got destroyed, the player would log back in, grab another small ship and attack. It took them hours but they managed to take out the big ship. Does anybody know what game that was in?

Probably eve and it was probably Goons who pioneered cheap in numbers over quality.

Intrepid00:stevetherobot: A few years back I read about a battle in one of these online games. One group spent countless hours and lots of real world money acquiring the largest, most expensive warship that could be gotten. It would make them virtually invincible. Notice I said virtually. Almost as soon as they got it, hundreds of other players started attacking them in small, cheap ships. The big ship was able to destroy those small ships with ease, but each time took a small amount of damage. Each time a small ship got destroyed, the player would log back in, grab another small ship and attack. It took them hours but they managed to take out the big ship. Does anybody know what game that was in?

Probably eve and it was probably Goons who pioneered cheap in numbers over quality.

PsyLord:I was just watching a video of the battle of 3000 ships. Is it normal that people just kinda park their ships when fighting? It looks as though they were just firing while standing still.

There's not much in the way of reason to move around. IIRC there's not much in the way of arcs of fire, and ranges of weaponry seem to be fairly close together on the tactical scale. I don't think that a ship in motion helps or hinders aim of the ship or against the ship, while moving around in a battle of that scale can and will mess with individual player's tactical sense.

We're talking about players, not naval fleet captains, so you can't expect much in the way of formal formation work - even if it had any sort of impact, it takes training and effort to be able to pull that off. EVE doesn't allow for a Jack Geary or a Honor Harrington. It is a game of individuals and corporations, of economic power manifested as military might.

So... parking and shooting ends up being the best option for both individual players and much in the way of the fleet, for major engagements. There's simply not enough support for squadron/fleet command and control.

/I tried EVE 5 times. Couldn't get into it.//Normally only try games twice.

PsyLord:I was just watching a video of the battle of 3000 ships. Is it normal that people just kinda park their ships when fighting? It looks as though they were just firing while standing still.

The larger ships don't appear to move very quickly especially when compared to frigates. So, it's a lot like old naval battles, with broadsides and strategic maneuvering, leaving tactical shifts to the smaller, faster ships. Many crews will park a fleetmate nearby, use him as a beacon to warp in close enough to hit the enemy fleet with their sword with their largest weapons, then fire up the sublight to close and focus fire on choice targets.

Meanwhile, the Wing and Fleet commanders are calling tacticals. Sure, a frigate has a peashooter, but when 128 peashooters orbit around and focus-fire on one target like a swarm of monstrous locusts, it tends to go up pretty quickly.

Summercat:There's not much in the way of reason to move around. IIRC there's not much in the way of arcs of fire, and ranges of weaponry seem to be fairly close together on the tactical scale. I don't think that a ship in motion helps or hinders aim of the ship or against the ship, while moving around in a battle of that scale can and will mess with individual player's tactical sense.

I can't speak to your experience, but relative arc speed to target greatly impacts a ship's ability to hit (and be hit by) other vessels. It's why the Titan can't really fire on that swarm of frigates with its doomsday weapon, but it sure can hit that drifting Carrier that's providing logistic support.

PsyLord:Intrepid00: stevetherobot: A few years back I read about a battle in one of these online games. One group spent countless hours and lots of real world money acquiring the largest, most expensive warship that could be gotten. It would make them virtually invincible. Notice I said virtually. Almost as soon as they got it, hundreds of other players started attacking them in small, cheap ships. The big ship was able to destroy those small ships with ease, but each time took a small amount of damage. Each time a small ship got destroyed, the player would log back in, grab another small ship and attack. It took them hours but they managed to take out the big ship. Does anybody know what game that was in?

Probably eve and it was probably Goons who pioneered cheap in numbers over quality.

Satanic_Hamster:They say it was the greatest collection of assholes every to assemble in space.

(if those who don't know, Eve is a game entirely populated by assholes)

It's only for assholes because it's the only game that is actually a job for players. Don't get me wrong, I won't call the game made for "No Fun" (because one man's fun is another man monotony) , but I have seen 2 friends set alarm clocks and timers for them to either remote access thier home computer, or wake up to train skills or gather crap. It's not a game for casuals, it's a game for addicts.

Satanic_Hamster:They say it was the greatest collection of assholes every to assemble in space.

(if those who don't know, Eve is a game entirely populated by assholes)

SordidEuphemism:I tell you, that game is crack rock. I'm glad I lost internet for a month a year or so back or else I might still be in it.

Sheesh. Great fun though. The game actively rewards sociopathy.

These. From a Slashdot comment on this story:The end result of all of my time playing is that I legitimately ruined the lives of several people (drama queens make great targets, several corps we went after had members who are now no longer RL friends), have two scams named after my scamming character, and made some awesome online friends. And when I flew through our old home system recently after after having been unsubbed for two years, the miners apparently still remembered me. Within minutes of entering the system they all docked up and immediately began cussing me out in local chat, so apparently I made a lasting impression on them.

This guy speaks fondly of losing real life friends through being a dick.

PsyLord:I was just watching a video of the battle of 3000 ships. Is it normal that people just kinda park their ships when fighting? It looks as though they were just firing while standing still.

1000's of KM of space and time dilation to 10% tend to do that. You'll need to find a video of time sped back up 90% to get an idea of what was really going on.

It really is pretty amazing, especially from a logistics standpoint. there's a complete hierarchy coordinating that mess of ships, and most rely on others to do their job or they're defenseless. Capital ships for example have hard a hard time locking on smaller ships, band their weapons take cycles of 10 min to lock. They need other ships to protect and buff them, because warp disruption bubbles keep them in the system and unable to flee if they get into trouble.

There are tiny bombers that do terrible damage as they warp on top of a group, drop their payload and suicide or warp out. There's other squadrons of ships that generally suck, but have the ability to immediately lock on and destroy other smaller ships and need to do so within 15 seconds (time it takes to drop a bomb). You need them to protect your carrier fleet.

thats on top of the markets and spreadsheet stuff. All interesting, but I fear if I ever got into it, it would suck me it.